The ability to effectively and efficiently use geographical information systems, such as map applications, in combination with informational databases to determine risk exposures and insurance cost estimates, have been hampered by the inability to manage the megabytes of information that are associated with user specified map areas. In typical geographic applications, the information available to the user corresponds to the area being displayed on an end user's terminal. That is, if an underwriter wants to evaluate the risk exposure for a selected site, the terminal must display the entire area that is to be included in the risk evaluation. Therefore, if relatively large areas have to be evaluated, the user must designate the display frame so that it encompasses the entire area. The geographic or mapping application then obtains all of the data corresponding to the framed area and paints the frame. The data corresponding to the selected area is typically sent over a network to the terminal. This data includes among other items, hazardous waste sites, dangerous business operations, schools, hospitals, power sources and gas stations.
A drawback of this approach is that the amount of data being passed through the network for relatively large areas is enormous and will detrimentally affect the network processing speed. For example, some mapping applications use latitude and longitude for reference and designation purposes. In these applications, the system has to handle over 300,000 points to identify only 180 hazard sites. Minimization of data traffic is therefore critical to the efficient use of network resources. Moreover, each time the underwriter changes the risk evaluation criteria, a new set of display information must be sent over the network. The inefficiency of this approach and the resulting traffic congestion on the network is further accentuated in a multiple user environment.
A further disadvantage of displaying the entire evaluation area is that the user may get overwhelmed with the corresponding amount of information. The larger the map frame, the denser the data that the user has to assimilate. As a result, the user loses focus of the immediate area of concern, which is normally smaller than the evaluation area. For example, if a manufacturing plant was worried about the impact of an explosion and fire at the plant, the impact area might be a one mile radius, whereas the risk evaluation area might include a five mile radius. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a system and method that initially limits the display area to the immediate area of concern, performs risk evaluation of sites not immediately visible to the user and thereby minimizes traffic congestion on the network.